Paternity

Regina couldn’t count the number of times her father pointed to his hair and told her that each grey strand came from “things like this”; in this particular case “this” referred to Regina coming home 3 hours after curfew without a proper explanation. Over the years Regina calmed down and matured out of her rebellious phase while Mr. Watkins began dying his prematurely grey locks, and growing proud of the woman his daughter was becoming. On the morning of the tenth of April, Mr. Watkins washed out the hair dye and threw away the bottle, staring at himself in the mirror obsessing over each silver strand of hair and wishing that he could relive every disobedient, troublesome moment if she could come back for one more day.

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With a Little Help from My Friends

Kinapak’s fingers tapped at the keys along with the music, playing it like a piano as his head bobbed and his body bounced to the beat. It was the only way he knew how to slog through a 10-page essay on the breadth and nuances of culinary archaeology. The knowledge of the field came with ease, however his brain required a rhythm to sort through the text researching the influences spreading through history. It wasn’t just about the history of cooking, it was tracing the connections from how a late-Neolithic cooking utensil informed the design of a triple sword from the Middle Ages. His roommate didn’t really care about the history, but he appreciated having a roommate who knew how to cook and enjoyed doing it. Trevor did make an effort to learn about it, and he fumbled in trying to explain to Kinapak why it didn’t interest him, and without offense taken he interrupted his roommate and simply said “It doesn’t stick to your brain.” Trevor’s wide eyes told him that that was the exact thought he was trying to express, and with this new understanding Trevor began to seek out what would stick. Kinapak tended to have that effect on people.

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Best of Friends

Squirrel and Bluejay were having a fun day in the park, nibbling crumbs tossed to them from the kindly old man who visits. Squirrel wondered why the nice old woman stopped coming with him and hoped it wasn’t because Bluejay accidentally bit her finger when he was going for a crumb in her hand, he was really sorry about that. Bluejay missed the old woman, and the old man doesn’t move as quickly without her. A few weeks later they noticed that they hadn’t seen the old man in a while and wondered why he stopped coming to the park, “He probably just wants to be with the nice old woman,” Bluejay assumed.

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Safe

It was Oscar’s first day of his six-week interrogation training course, and as soon as he set foot in the room his gut grumbled with dread. There were 13 other cadets and they would divide into teams of two or three until every individual had experienced every angle of interrogation: one cadet and one suspect, two and one, one and two. Every day before class Oscar trembled at the thought of his inevitable one on one session with Elisse, triggering the thick, cold sweat that follows the strike of fear; the overwhelming thought of her interrogating him, reading his mind, and discovering his intense affection for her. The nightmares, crashing like waves and waking him throughout his evenings only amplified as the course wore on without resolution. All the nightmares, however, were of her discovering his secret and using it against him. His subconscious never imagined the scenario he found himself in halfway through the course: interrogating Elisse, using the Console to navigate her thoughts and memories, breaking down the mental walls she created to hide private information. Elisse was expertly trained and knew the best method to hide information from interrogation was to not hide it at all, but rather stow it alongside a pleasant thought or memory without shame or guilt… However, while she successfully avoided discovery of her assigned “secrets”, Oscar managed to open a door to a past she had hid even from herself.

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Eye of the Beholder

Roda was enjoying her first date with Chester, a sweet guy she took a chance on despite his nebbish demeanor. She was in the middle of convincing herself that she understood and cared about the potential findings from large particle accelerators when a chorus of men shouting “Donny!” rumbled towards them. Chester jolted in his seat and turned to them as they surrounded him and jostled him with whoops and hollers. In that moment Roda saw a glimpse of a relationship where she would harken back on the absurd case of mistaken identity that occurred on their first date, until it was revealed that years earlier Chester was much more outgoing and had earned the title of ‘King of the Donnybrook’ after one too many nights spent in County Lock-Up. Intrigued by the unknown layers lurking below she smiled and made an “I’ll call” gesture as The Boys whisked her date away. Chester thought she was politely blowing him off, until he woke up the next day with a massive hangover and message from her, planning a second date.

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